Photograph from U. S. Public Health Service
SNAP-TRAPS IN SURFACE SEWERS
In New Orleans snap-traps were placed under the culverts in
the surface storm-water sewers. An observer will note that a mouse
or rat usually runs along the edge of a wall; therefore the trap is
laced against the wall and not at some distance from it.
city had 50 dozen brooms, worth $2.50 a
dozen, destroyed, and another had $500
worth of fine china broken in a single
night. A harness dealer lost $400 worth
of horse collars in a season. Mail sacks
and other bags of all description have
holes cut in them, and ivory on shipboard
or on the docks is gnawed and its value
seriously reduced.
In addition to the losses of foodstuffs
and merchandise, rats seriously injure
buildings, sometimes by burrowing and
persistent gnawing almost destroying the
foundations. They cut holes in the floors,
walls, doors, as well as in chests, ward
robes, bookcases, and closets.
Through rat infestation buildings are
sometimes rendered uninhabitable, forc
ing the tenants to abandon them and caus-
ing heavy losses to
the owners. An en
tire block of small
houses in Washing
ton was deserted for
this cause, resulting
in the loss of $2,000
in rents.
Occasion
ally a building is so
undermined and
weakened by these
pests that it must be
torn down.
INCREDIBLE NUMBERS
IN AUSTRALIA
House mice share a
world-wide distribu
tion with rats, and,
while much smaller,
are to be included
with the rats as wast
ers of food and de
stroyers of other com
modities.
Occasion
ally they increase in
numbers until they
rival the rats in their
destructiveness. Any
campaign for the sup
pression of the rat
pest should, as a mat
ter of course, include
house mice.
The potentiality ex
isting in these small
animals to cause great
losses of foodstuffs
is now being demonstrated in Victoria and
New South Wales, Australia, where dur
ing the last few months a plague of mice
has developed. Enormous numbers of
mice have swarmed about huge stacks
containing millions of sacks of wheat,
riddling the sacks and causing the stacks
to collapse.
The Melbourne Leader of May 26,
1917, states that "in some centers the
ravages of mice are so great that huge
stacks erected some months ago now re
semble heaps of debris."
The President
of the Chamber of Agriculture estimated
that the loss might exceed £1oo,ooo.
In New South Wales the Wheat Board
began a campaign against the mice by
double fence traps. The catch for two
nights in one place is reported to have